Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, an Oscar winner for the film “Gravity”, revealed that many years ago he was offered to direct one of the films in the James Bond franchise.
“Many years ago, I was offered to direct a Bond movie,” Cuaron said at the Marrakech Film Festival (via Variety). “I said, ‘Yes, cool. Maybe.’ It turned out I was to shoot the dialogues and other stuff, while a separate team was supposed to handle the action scenes. Very strange.”
At the same time, the final decision to decline was aided by his colleague in the directing field, Joel Coen, during a friendly dinner.
“I was nervous about this idea. I asked Joel during dinner what he thought about Bond. He replied, ‘It’s in the category of films that I want to watch, not make.’ And I took that lesson.”
Cuaron is not the first top director to refuse to join the Bond franchise. As noted by World of Reel, this list also includes Alfred Hitchcock, Danny Boyle, Steven Spielberg, Steven Soderbergh, John Woo, and Peter Jackson.
Interestingly, the statement about separate shooting of action scenes is quite a tactic often used by the MCU, but for the “Bond” series, it’s something new. At the same time, Cuaron’s words confirm comments by Sam Mendes, who directed two films about Agent 007 and stated that the producers are currently looking for “more controllable directors” for shooting.
We previously wrote that for the new James Bond film they are looking for a man 30+, possibly black — he will play the character for the next 10 years. Also, the franchise is looking for directorial candidates: rumors say the producers met with Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) and tried to involve Christopher Nolan for at least the next two films, but the director denied it; Zoe Saldana also expressed interest in working on the Bond series.
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